Twenty four hours of non-stop action in a weekend. It’s not about guzzling loads of beer at a pub; it’s not about watching couple of bollywood blockbuster in the favorite multiplex; not about going out on long drive at thrilling speeds to a holiday spot, but non-stop coding, rather relentless tapping of the keyboard and the clicking of the mouse. Sounds crazy!! Isn’t it? Yes, a group of six decided to be a part of this crazy action.
It was Friday 15:30 hours we were there for the Code Olympics 2005 kick-off meeting. Like us there were many who have gathered and I could see lot of positive energy around. All ears were tuned to listen to the instructions and information about the event. I don’t know about the instructions, but Information was interesting than the instructions and got occasional applauses from the gathering. Big B’s movies, Chinese food for dinner, midnight snacks, mattress and pillows were main attractions. Then the Problem Scouts came to describe the problem statements. Anjina was making a quick note of all the problem titles, while Kaushik was thinking about which one is feasible.
Now we had the problems in hand and the real problem in our hands is “Which one to take-up?” After lot of deliberation at 5:30 pm, one problem statement was agreed upon, and Shahul was asked to register for the same. Now what next? As anyone can easily guess what else could software engineer do? We went for brainstorming. After few minutes of brainstorming it was decided that we work in two different teams to approach the problem in a two different ways. Shahul, Pooja and Sharath decided to work on a solution and Kaushik, Anjina and myself to work on a different path.
Like every programmer we followed the thumb rule of searching for the solutions on the net. We all started googling! As time progressed there were ideas which emerged and disappeared. But it looked like it is possible to show a working model. Initially everything seemed to be vague and uncertain…but we were confident that things will fall in place soon.
At 8:30 pm we decided to break for dinner. Everyone did full justice to their appetite and came back to work. After a heavy dinner most of us felt sleepy. But with the each one of our tasks cut-out and busy working on it. Music was played in high volume and energy level was high enough to go tapping the keyboards.
Its 11:30 pm again time for some munchingJ. Burgers and Samosas were there to be hogged. Someone told the movie started in the cafeteria. We told to ourselves that “No distraction can attract us from reaching the goal!!”….. Actually the movie was not a great one ….
After 2 o’ clock in the night the batteries went down and started finding some cozy places in and around the cubicles to retire.
Next day morning was not fine for many of us. Lack of sleep, heavy food, and hard work J had heavy toll on us. Kaushik had to retire-hurt and went home to take rest.
As the day progressed things started working well for both the teams managed a working program which could be presented. The application looked promising as things started working slowly. We were excited at one stage we thought something is better than nothing and now started becoming bit greedy and want every thing to work. Till the neck of the moment lots of changes were made. There was relief as there is no need for us to chicken-out or go absconding before the presentation.
Evening 6:30 we had our presentation and all our work was stopped on the code at 6:00. The presentation went on well and every one of us was happy that little hard work that was put in had brought some appreciation.
With great sense of achievement we were there at the evening party. Beer started flowing and nice music was played. We enjoyed the party talking about the last 24 hours. I would take back my first line in the write-up as lots of beer was guzzled!!!J The
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